Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie

Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie (15 October 1622-26 April 1686) was Lord High Treasurer of Sweden from 1652 to 1660 (succeeding Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna and preceding Gustaf Bonde) and Lord High Chancellor from 1660 to 1680 (succeeding Erik Oxenstierna).

Biography
Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie was born in 1622 in Reval, Swedish Estonia, Sweden (now Tallinn, Estonia), the brother of Jakob Kasimir de la Gardie and the son of Jacob de la Gardie. He was educated in warfare under Field Marshal Gustav Horn, and he became the favorite of Queen Christina of Sweden due to his good manners, his good looks, and his talent for organizing festivities and surrounding himself with extravagance and magnificence. In 1645, he was promoted to Colonel of the Life Guards, and he took part in a 1646 diplomatic mission to France to find court musicians. In 1648, he was promoted to general, taking part in the capture of Prague at the end of the Thirty Years' War. In 1649, he briefly served as Governor of Swedish Livonia, and he became Marshal of the Realm in 1651.

In 1653, De la Gardie fell out with the Queen and was forced out of the court along with the rest of his family, and he returned to the public under his former brother-in-arms, King Charles X Gustav of Sweden. In 1654, he became Governor of Vastergotland, Dalsland and Halland, and he returned to being Governor-General of Livonia in 1655. He commanded troops in Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia during the wars against Poland-Lithuania and Russia (the Second Northern War), and he was made Lord High Chancellor of Sweden in Charles X Gustav's will in 1660. From 1660 to 1672, he governed Sweden during the minority of Charles XI of Sweden, but he looked to much to old traditions. He was responsible for some of Sweden's financial troubles during his regency, and his influence decreased from 1675. He was accused of high treason after a Swedish defeat at Fehrbellin during the Franco-Dutch War led to Denmark being encouraged to attack Sweden in the Scanian War. During the war, De la Gardie fought against the Danes in Bohuslan, and he was defeated at Uddevalla in 1677.

In 1680, King Charles demolished the Swedish elite by passing a law allowing for the crown to take noble lands, and he implemented absolutism, ending the Privy Council's dominant role in politics. De la Gardie was demoted to Lord High Steward, losing influence on the country's foreign policy. He lost his whole fortune through the land recoveries made by the crown, and he died in Sigtuna, Sweden in 1686 at the age of 63.